Pension

The South West branch meting at the Cosner’s house was mainly taken up by

a presentation by Tom Watson from the Weseleyan, the Union’s chosen financial services and advice suppliers. He came up with a number of points:

-unlike private schemes it’s a promise to pay and you know what you get in the future

-it is in your interest to keep a record of the dates you joined the TPA scheme and the dates that you had a TLR took leave for maternity or other reasons

-It is worth checking and down loading a copy of your TPA record from time to time especially if you are changing schools or retiring. With schools becoming Academies it will be difficult to sort a problem out if you are not on site, downloading may not be easy off site. Schools may change their name or be demolished, LEAs may become defunct or merge records may be lost

- in spite of changing goal posts the scheme is still relatively good envy of most private schemes

-If you are thinking of leaving teaching remember that you have to be in the scheme for two years for contributions to count. Watch your start and finish dates, starting in early September and resigning at the end of the summer may be two academic years but will be less than two pensionable years so no pension

- if you think that it’s not going to be worth anything when you come to retire remember that its index linked so it’s not money wasted

- Early retirement is a possibility at 55 BUT there a considerable costs early on, gets less the near you are to your ‘normal’ retirement date

It’s called actuarial adjustment

For the majority of teachers your pension depends on your date of birth and length of service. The rules have changed so it’s not easy to give a brief summary